Midtown Lunch

Thanksgiving is just days away, so food blog readers should probably prepare themselves for a bunch of “Here are my favorite turkey sandwiches in L.A.” posts. (Lord knows I’ve been guilty of this in the past.)   But that’s just food blog filler.  After all, who wants to eat turkey before eating turkey?  Oh… you do?  Well, not me.  I try to limit my turkey intake to once a year, followed by a day or two of leftovers. Of course everyone has a different way of preparing for Thanksgiving.  Since we’re in Los Angeles, I’m guessing starvation is a go-to strategy for many.  Then again, for those people not eating is probably a default setting so the lead up to Thanksgiving is really just an excuse to make their eating disorder acceptable.

But don’t those people know that eating less is probably the worst thing you can do the prepare yourself for the carnage of a properly eaten Thanksgiving meal!  Stomach shrinkage?  No thanks.  We need stomach expansion.  That’s why I like to all-you-can-eat-buffet it up in the week leading up to turkey day.  And what do you know?  A new one has just opened up in West L.A.!

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If there was an award for most improved L.A. lunch scene in the past few years, it has got to be Miracle Mile.  The area of Wilshire Blvd. between La Brea and La Cienega has been completely transformed since I worked at 5700 Wilshire in 2005.   Back then it was Baja Fresh or Baja Fresh… unless of course you liked Marie Callender’s (I do not.)  Now there’s The Counter, a couple of decent looking sushi places, Five Guys is on its way, and of course the food trucks- which still line up en masse across the street from the LACMA.  But my new favorite place in the area has got to be Genki Grill, a 6 month old Asian rice bowl place on Wilshire between San Vicente and Crescent Heights.

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If the excitement for food trucks is on the decline here in L.A. nobody has bothered to tell prospective food truck entrepreneurs. Every time I hit up my favorite food truck lot for lunch it seems another (usually ridiculous) idea has placed itself on four wheels- from nachos to peanut butter topped hamburgers.  And while many early gourmet food truck fans have given up on finding anything of quality off of a truck that seems to have spent more time on their logo than researching their business plan, I still can’t help myself.  Sure, the relatively low barrier to entry has created a parade of mediocre trucks run by wannabe cooks who are in over their head- both financially and culinar-ally (yes, I just made that word up.)  But occasionally you stumble upon something so genius- I’m looking at you sushi burritos- or just plain tasty, that it restores your faith in the whole genre.  And if you work in an office near Mid Wilshire, or 26th & Pennsylvania, or Olympic and Bundy, or Overland and Washington, or 7th & Fig, being a snob about food trucks doesn’t really seem like an option.

So when I read on Grub Street that a new Japanese curry truck was hitting the street, I got a little excited.

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I want to stop eating ramen.  I really do.  But the city won’t let me. First, popular Torrance transplant Yamadaya opened around the corner from my house.  Then Shin Sen Gumi did the same Downtown.  Surely after my Tsukemen round up, I would take a slurp break, but no.  After months of teasing, Tsujita L.A., a Tokyo mini-chain popular for its tonkotsu ramen and citrus spritzed tsukemen, decided to finally start serving lunch last week.  How could I not?

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

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Do you think Los Angeles’ ramen obsession caused an explosion of new noodle shops all over the city. Or did the noodle shop explosion cause us to become ramen obsessed? The old chicken or the egg adage. (I kind of wish I was writing about oyakodon right now!)  I’m not sure I know the answer, but if you eat with the rhythm of the city chances are you’ve been slurping up a ton more ramen these days.  I know I have.  I also blew through the first issue of Lucky Peach, watched seminal Japanese ramen movie Tampopo for the first time, and ate my first bowl of tsukemen. What’s the Japanese term for perfect storm?

Watching the long-out-of-print-and-not-available-on-Netflix Tampopo was long overdue.  And Lucky Peach, a joint venture between McSweeney’s & Momofuku, will restore your faith in the awesomeness of print.  If you haven’t picked up the first issue (which was dedicated entirely to ramen), you really should.  But the final piece of my ramen hurricane might be the one that has the longest lasting impression.  On the surface, tsukemen seems fairly simple.  It’s ramen where the noodles are served separate from the broth, which is turned into a dipping sauce of sorts.  But once you dive in you realize that it is far more complex.

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One can’t help but feel like there is a full scale ramen invasion going on in Los Angeles right now.  Jinya attacked the woefully unoccupied Valley and Mid City territories, while Yamadaya took their Torrence army north into a Westside previously dominated by Santouka- and will soon dispatch another force to Westwood, where Wakasan is the only ramen lunch to be had.  We are all eagerly awaiting Tsujita’s first move in West L.A., and even Hollywood seems to be under fire.

But none of those battles compare to the throw down that is about to take place in Downtown L.A. Love it or hate it, there is no dispute that Daikokuya is the best bowl of ramen in DTLA. But now that Shin Sen Gumi, a Hakata style ramenya with locations in the South Bay and San Gabriel Valley, has opened up an outpost in Little Tokyo that is all totally up in the air.

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If you live or work in the Culver City/Palms area (or spend as much time at Scoops Westside as I do) finding lunch around Overland and Venice has become a constant mission. After all, one cannot live off ice cream and Intelligentsia coffee alone (although a few people I know are certainly trying).  If you’re in the mood for Indian, there are a ton of options.  Mexican?  It’s Angelica’s Cemita truck FTW. Indonesian?  Simpang Asia is right around the corner. And I’ll be very excited when the Westside Food Truck Central lot opens back up.

But what about Japanese food?  Yamadaya just opened on Sepulveda and Washington, but what about sushi?  Finding decent sushi for under $10 is practically impossible, but when paired up with some cheaper items in lunchtime bento box form it becomes a bit easier. And when I heard that Sushi Central (on Overland & Palms) does exactly that, for only $9.95 I got pretty excited.

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